


Three Spots

by kennyharris



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, Singing, choir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-06
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 17:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3298091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kennyharris/pseuds/kennyharris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon hates Ryan. Not only is the kid a pretentious ass who thinks his band, Pet Salamander, is the greatest thing since the Beatles, but he is in direct competition with Brendon for one of the three coveted spots that guarantees admission into the elite All-Nevada Choir. And maybe Ryan also happens to be infuriatingly attractive and distracting, but that's another story....</p><p>[WIP]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The small classroom could hold all 20 boys. Well, 22, if you count the two baby-faced freshmen who volunteered to be ‘runners’ — essentially, spending an evening dashing around and squeaking out directions to the pack of older boys auditioning for their spots in Southern Nevada Region Choir. It was a big choir, with 20 boys or girls on each voice part — 160 teenagers total. This room held the second tenors, and to Brendon, they all looked fierce, even as they were obsessively shuffling their audition music and pushing their hair back off their sweaty foreheads. All of them wanted one thing: one of the coveted Three Spots. All the boys who auditioned would get to participate in the Region Choir festival for 3 days, sing at the concert, and then go home tired on Saturday. But the boys with the three highest scores would be eligible to move on to the elite All-Nevada Choir and sing with the best high school singers from around the state, not just the Las Vegas era. And one glance into the eyes of any boy in the room revealed that they all would be willing to do anything for one of those spots.  
  
One of the runners spoke up nervously, breaking the silence. “So, um, the judges need just a few more minutes to get ready then we’ll start calling you one at a time to go audition. For, uh, chair placement, and..”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” interrupted a lanky boy from the back corner. Brendon swiveled to look at him. He looked older, probably a senior like Brendon, and jaded. He carried his audition music casually at his side and was one of the only boys who didn’t look completely on edge. “I mean, it’s not like the chair placement actually means anything… it’s total bullshit. No real measure of talent.”  
  
Brendon found himself opening his mouth to speak, almost without thinking. “Really? So you’re not at all interested in being in the All-Nevada Choir, or getting solos, or anything?”  
  
The other boy raised an eyebrow, and Brendon blushed, embarrassed for coming off so...eager. “Well yeah, that might be fun. I just think it’s a terrible system. Totally arbitrary,” he said. “Besides, I have my band.”  
  
“You’re in a band?” interjected one of the runners excitedly. “Like Fall Out Boy or something? I love them! What do you do, Ryan?” _Ryan_. Brendon squinted at the nametag perched on the other boy’s chest. _Ryan Ross_. A great name for a douchebag, he thought.  
  
“Fall Out Boy? They’re all right,” Ryan said casually, running his hands through his mop of hair. “We’re called Pet Salamander and I like to think of us as more free spirits, experimental musicians. None of that mainstream bullshit. I’m the lead singer, of course.”  
  
At this point almost all of the boys in the room were fixed on Ryan, the looks in their eyes ranging from admiration to fear to hatred. Brendon wasn’t sure what he felt, but for some infuriating reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off the asshole. He knew that he hated him now — he hated his little button nose, his round eyes, his hair that curled slightly around his ears. He especially hated the low, sing-songy way that Ryan spoke.  
  
“I went to All-Nevada Choir last year,” spoke up a rough looking, red-cheeked boy who desperately needed a haircut. “It was actually pretty cool, man. I’m Brent, by the way.”  
  
“Really?” Brendon asked, suddenly interested. “How did you manage that?”  
  
“What, I don’t look like a good singer?” Brent giggled. “I just did it dude. I don’t know.”  
  
“That’s awesome,” Brendon said. “Wow.”  
  
“Alright, so whenever you two are done being gay as hell, let me know,” Ryan said sarcastically. “God.”  
  
“Um, it’s in the student handbook that we’re not allowed to use bad language,” said the runner. “Besides, the judges just called me and they’re ready.” He waved his official Region Choir walkie talkie in the air proudly.  
  
The boys all turned towards the front of the room and stood up straighter as the other runner pulled out a list of names. “Um, when I call your name, Jimmy will lead you to your audition room across the hall.” He gestured to the runner with the walkie talkie. “And the first name is...Brent Wilson.”  
  
The other 19 boys breathed a sigh of relief as Brent confidently swaggered to the door. “See you, bitchesss!”  
  
After Brent left, the room grew silent. This was the real beginning for the boys and they all knew it. The only sound in the room was the clicking of the wall clock and nervous foot-tapping and swallowing. The walls were thin and Brendon could hear, faintly, Brent warming up in the other room. He sounded good, with a full voice that hit most of the notes, and for the next half an hour as names were slowly called and the room emptied one by one, he tried to block out the sounds of the other boys auditioning.  
  
Finally, there was only one other person left in the room: Ryan. He and Brendon stared at eachother. “I guess there’s only us left now,” Brendon said.  
  
“Yeah, whatever,” Ryan said. “May the best man win, right?” He smirked, a few curls falling in his eyes.  
  
“I thought you didn’t care,” Brendon mumbled. Why did the boy have to be so damn distracting?  
  
Just then, the runner with the list came back in and called Brendon’s name. As he shakily gathered his music and turned to leave, he saw Ryan mouth at him, _“I don’t”._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brendon can't stop thinking about Ryan, even the night after auditions, when he really should be getting some sleep. Anyways, there are more important things he should be worried about (like the possibility of making All-Nevada choir), right?

As Brendon left the audition room, he could help feeling hopeless. After an audition like that, there was no way he would move on to All-Nevada. Sure, he hit the notes right, working through most of the audition piece with ease. But something about his voice just felt...off. His vibrato was too dry, his voice was strained and just about breaking on all the high notes. Anyone could have beaten him — especially Brent, and if he was as good as he claimed to be, Ryan. That fucker. Brendon grimaced, hugging his arms around himself. After that audition, he sure as hell didn’t deserve one of the three top spots.

That night in the hotel that all the choir kids were staying in, Brendon lay awake for hours out of nerves, and...something else. Anger, frustration, obsession — with the soft hair and infuriatingly handsome face of Ryan. He hoped beyond hope that nobody could hear his thoughts then — not his roommate, nor his devout Mormon parents, nor God. If there was one. Brendon knew he wasn’t, you know, gay; he’d had a few girlfriends in middle and high school, and he liked kissing them. There was just something about Ryan Ross that he couldn’t quite put a finger on, something that made his backbone shiver and his toes curl and his lips burn. When he spoke in the classroom earlier, god, he was a douche, and Brendon had wanted nothing more than to shut him up. To stride across the room, pin that lanky frame against a wall with his own, hands on Ryan’s wrists and lips burning on his neck. Shut him up for good and never stop. Brendon squirmed at the thought of it, trying to force the thought out of his head. An uncomfortable feeling was brewing at the base of his spine and no matter how he tossed and turned in the crisp hotel sheets, he couldn’t shake it. It was at least an hour before he fell asleep.

 

The next morning, the air in the Region Choir auditorium was alive with a painful, static tension. It was 8 am and the list was about to be read. Everyone would sing in the festival, but only 24 kids — 3 on a part — would return the next month for All-Nevada Choir. All 160 boys and girls sat on the edge of their seats as one of the judges walked up to the podium, list in hand. Names would be called in order of lowest score to highest, one voice part at a time. Everyone hoped dearly that their name wouldn’t be called first, because the walk of shame from the auditorium seat to the stage was a long and grueling one, the victim being mentally picked apart by nearly 200 other pairs of judging eyes. To be the first name called of the day was a stigma that you couldn’t rub off that easily.

The judge started calling the girls first, and Brendon didn’t know any of them except for a girl called Victoria who went to his school but he never talked to. He knew she wouldn’t be moving on from the start, and he was right — Victoria got 12th chair in the first soprano section. After her, he zoned out, counting the rows of heads in front of him as girls continued to be called up. Sometimes there was gasping, cheering, crying, as the judge neared the end of the list and the top 3 chairs on a part were revealed. But Brendon found himself only concentrating on a curly mop of hair three rows in front of him. Ryan’s arm dangled casually behind him, long fingers occasionally brushing the hair on the nape of his neck as if to say, I know you see me. I know you like it. Brendon felt like Ryan was, somehow, taunting him, and he forced himself to look away.

“Second tenors,” the judge crackled into the microphone suddenly, and Brendon jerked up suddenly. The first 15 or so names were a blur, Joe this, Gabe that. But he didn’t hear his own anywhere, and as more and more names were called he realized that his knuckles were starting to turn white from gripping the arm of his seat. “Fourth chair,” the judge called — and Brendon froze, it was either this or All-Nevada, and he knew in his heart that his name would be called now, he wasn’t going on, and he swore that he saw the judge’s lips purse together to form the start of a _B_ — the judge coughed once then said, “Ryan Ross.”

Ryan got up slowly, ruffling his hair. He turned Brendon’s way for a second, and it was impossible to read his face, features absolutely neutral. Brendon was almost too focused on the other boy to realize that, holy shit, he was going to All-Nevada… but it couldn’t be real, it had to be some mistake. Maybe they’d forgotten his name and he was actually one of the indistinguishable 16 chairs below the three spots, and below Ryan Ross. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, to shake the curly-hair invader out of his mind.

“Third chair,” said the judge, “Brent Wilson.”

Brent was sitting a few seats over from Brendon and he had to climb over him to get out into the aisle. “Dude, you made it!” he said hazily. “We are the big-fucking-top.”

Brendon laughed nervously. “No. Haha. No, I doubt it...really…”

“Sure, man,” Brent said, sighing. “Well, see you up in a minute.”

Second chair went to a boy Brendon didn’t recognize. He thought he heard cheering in the background — second chair’s friends — but he was too busy looking around at the rest of the rows that the second tenors had been seated in, looking for whatever lucky bastard was supposed to have first chair. Because it couldn’t be him, it couldn’t, and — “First chair, Brendon Urie.”

Brendon rose slowly from his seat, the eyes of 200 envious vultures on his back as he walked to his spot on stage. He pinched his arm, hard, and yes. This had to be real. Once on stage, he found himself making eye contact with Ryan, three chairs over from him. The other boy smiled quick and flashed his eyebrows, but it wasn’t friendly. It was a challenge, and Brendon was ready. Oh, he was so ready.

 

 

 


End file.
